


Any other way

by caricari



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Has a Penis (Good Omens), Comfort, Emotional Support Angel Aziraphale (Good Omens), Established Relationship, Fluff and Smut, Friendship, Hand Jobs, He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Crowley (Good Omens), Intercrural Sex, Kissing, Love, M/M, Non-Penetrative Sex, Shower Sex, Teasing, and more than one joke about crowley's music choices, quite a lot of softness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:13:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26470204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caricari/pseuds/caricari
Summary: Crowley is having a bad day. Aziraphale drops by, to cheer him up.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 72
Kudos: 323
Collections: AJ’s personal faves, Ixnael’s Recommendations, Our Own Side, Shinbi34's Recommendations, Tip Top Stories





	Any other way

**Author's Note:**

> My twenty-three-thousand thanks to [ AJ ](https://www.instagram.com/theeyjayy/) for reading, giving feedback, and destroying my excess commas.

.

He opens the door with a snap, on the thirteenth knock.

“What?”

Aziraphale does not flinch - just lifts his chin, meeting his gaze with the confidence of an angel who believes he has every right to be somewhere.

“Hello, my dear. How are you?”

Crowley blinks and glances down at himself. He’s wearing joggers and a t-shirt that he donned at least three days ago. The latter has a dark coffee stain down the front. His hair is pulled back into a greasy bun. Nothing about him screams ‘well’.

“Spiffy,” he answers, anyway.

“Really?”

“No.” A moment passes. “Listen, angel, I’m not trying to be an ass, but I’m really not up for coming out tonight. I’m doing my thing, you know?” he eyes his friend, hoping that Aziraphale does know - hoping that he has not forgotten the awkward conversation they’d had, eleven months into their post Armageddon life together. “You got my message last week, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I need a couple of days whenever this happens. You know how it is…”

“I do.” Aziraphale smiles, softer this time. “I’m not here to pressure you into coming out. I just thought you might be at the stage where you could use some company.”

Crowley frowns.

“What do you mean ‘at the stage’?”

“Oh, well,” Aziraphale beams. “Do you remember, about a decade ago, when you came over and used my computer to log into your music streaking program?”

“Music streaming,” Crowley corrects, automatically, then frowns. “What about it?”

“Well, you never logged out. So, I’ve been able to open it up and see what songs you’re listening to.”

“You _what_?”

“Well, your tastes vary, you see?” Aziraphale explains, patiently. “If you truly need space, you stick to a narrow selection of albums - but there is a period, after the initial hurt, where you’re actually starting to feel better but still allowing yourself wallow. And that is quite a different set of songs entirely. So, I can tell when it’s appropriate for me to butt in.”

“I-,” Crowley blinks. “Wait. Let me get this straight... You’ve been monitoring my mood for years, using _Spotify_ , and choosing when to time your interventions?”

“Yes.” The angel smiles at him. “I usually aim for after Meredith Brooks, but before Celine Dion.”

“Oh, for Satan’s-,” His cheeks flush scarlet. He tries to close the door, but Aziraphale already has one foot over the threshold. “Bugger off.” Crowley grumbles, but his friend just bustles past, clutching a bag under his arm.

“You’ve been on your own for five days, so I imagine you’ll be in need of a meal that isn’t solely composed of beige carbohydrates,” he chirps, heading towards the kitchen. “I’ve brought Thai.”

Rolling his eyes, Crowley closes the door and follows him down the hall.

Despite the infrequency of his visits, Aziraphale is perfectly comfortable moving around the flat. When Crowley steps into the kitchen, he finds the angel is already pottering about, selecting plates from the draining board and forks from the drawer under the hob. He’s unpacked the cardboard boxes from their plastic bag and laid them out on the countertop, beside a neat pile of paper napkins.

“You’re such an ass,” Crowley grumbles, watching his friend stand up on tip toes, reaching into a high cupboard for a pair of red wine glasses. “I didn’t ask you to come over, you know?”

“You don’t have to ask. That’s not how this works.”

He says it like Crowley should already know, like it’s some sort of fundamental truth.

He’s always so sure of himself, like that, Crowley thinks. It’s what had drawn the demon to the angel in the first place - that the day they met, high on Eden’s wall. Aziraphale had always had a soft but resolute conviction about him; a creature who could fret over Heaven’s reactions, but who was so sure of what was right that he had given away one of God’s most powerful weapons just to keep a human warm.

There is incalculable comfort, in having such a creature in his kitchen. There is immeasurable comfort in listening to him prattle on about his week. The bookshop customers and rumours from his little corner of Soho. The dark cloud that Crowley has been moping under for the last five days does not lift, but it begins to thin a little. 

He relents and sits down at the table, agrees to eat some of Aziraphale’s offered food, to drink his wine. He accepts an offer to curl up on the sofa, afterwards, and watch a film. He even suggests he might shower, first - which Aziraphale tactfully admits might be a good idea.

Stepping into the stream of hot water, ten minutes later, Crowley closes his eyes and listens to his best friend cleaning up their meal, next door, letting the evening light paint the inside of his eyelids pink.

The water is regenerative in a way that he had not anticipated. No amount of self motivation would have dragged him from his nest of bedsheets, today, Crowley knows, but Aziraphale’s presence has helped. It is nice, Crowley thinks, having him there. It’s nice, that they can be there for one another, now, that they can offer things and ask. (Crowley is not quite at the asking stage, but he’s getting there. He’s working on it).

A soft knock on the bathroom door fractures his thoughts after five minutes of standing - announcing that Aziraphale has finished in the kitchen.

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah.”

Something tightens at the base of Crowley's spine at the thought of it, still. They’re only just getting comfortable with this bit. After so many years of not reaching out, physically, every touch is charged. But they’re getting there, Crowley thinks, listening to his friend step inside - listening to the soft sound of him undressing, of his clothes falling to the floor. They’re working on it.

“Can I help?” Aziraphale is closer, now, stepping inside the glass walls of the shower, into Crowley’s safe cocoon.

The demon swallows.

“Yeah.”

It comes out softer, this time - shier, but no less genuine. Crowley feels a shiver tighten through his abdomen as Aziraphale’s fingertips stroke lightly over his shoulder blades, then move off to one side, pick up a bottle of expensive, carefully formulated soap, audibly squeezing some into the palm of his hand.

He rubs over Crowley’s sides, first - over ribs and belly, and the sharp rise of hips. Then, he continues along the curve of the demon's spine, out to the tips of his shoulders, along the length of his arms. It feels like he’s tracing his bones, Crowley thinks. Marking the truth of him out, on the surface, for everyone to see.

He keeps his eyes closed as Aziraphale works, trying not to blush at the way his blood automatically redirects itself between his legs - trying to enjoy the care without implying a need for more.

“This okay?” His friend asks, softly, after a minute or so.

“Yeah…”

He lets his head tilt back, lifts an arm as Aziraphale works underneath, into an armpit, along the inside of a bicep. The angel’s other hand comes up to join in, rubbing soap into his forearms and the meat of his palm. Then, along the bony curves of his fingers, massaging gently. Nobody has ever touched him in such a way, before. It is unbearably nice.

Crowley knows he shouldn’t like ‘nice'. There is no space for a creature like him, within the definition of that word. But there is space for Aziraphale, he supposes, and he loves Aziraphale - and that circuitous justification is enough, in the moment.

So, he keeps his eyes closed and submits to the pleasure of fingers working back up his arms and around his neck, (he does not feel even a shred of fear, to feel his once-enemy’s touch at this delicate spot. He knows he should. He knows there should be an instinct that tells him to protect the softer parts of him, but it is dulled by endorphins). He breathes out, the noise more like a sigh than he had intended, but shame seems to be dulled, too.

“Hair?”

“Yeah.”

He should really expand his repertoire from ‘yeah’, he thinks, as Aziraphale squeezes shampoo into his hand, working it into the newly released knot of hair. He should probably say something less monosyllabic, but he cannot raise it. He’s drunk on sensation. He just wants to curl up in the moment and bask.

The fingers work their way from front to back, from the crown of his head into his temples and down to the nape of his neck. They are firm but gentle, making tiny circles against his skin. Slicked with soap, they move easily. The lather slides over his collarbones and down his chest, is gathered up by Aziraphale’s hands and dropped with soft ‘splats’ to the floor.

Crowley keeps his eyes closed, trying desperately not to melt.

“There,” Aziraphale has this low edge to his voice, a sign that he is not entirely unaffected by events, either. Digging his fingers through soaked strands of hair, the angel brushes until it is detangled and free of soap, then moves his hands to rest against Crowley’s lower back. His fingers dig into the demon’s flesh there, gently. “Better?”

“Mm.”

It is. He feels slightly lightheaded from the lack of blood remaining in his head.

Aziraphale’s fingertips draw tiny circles on the sides of his belly, beckoning attention.

Finally opening his eyes, Crowley glances back at him, over one shoulder.

“Anything else?” The angel asks, pupils wide and dark, rubbing an index finger down into the crease of his thigh - just close enough to imply the offer of a different kind of touch.

“Nnh-,”

Crowley clears his throat and eyes him - eyes the small bottle that has suddenly appeared alongside the familiar shapes of his shampoo and soap. He finds himself admiring the transparency of the offer, as well as Aziraphale’s well-held standards - the fact that the angel would never obliquely offer to jerk him off without top grade lubrication on hand. He’s ridiculous, Crowley thinks, eyes drifting back over his friend’s shy, hopeful expression. And brilliant.

“Yeah, go on then,” he murmurs, acutely aware that he’s got a naked, eager angel behind him and, really, it would be a complete waste not to take advantage of such a situation. “If you insist.”

Aziraphale flashes him a slightly mischievous smile.

“If I insist?” There’s more than a hint of bastardry in his voice. “Oh no, my dear… There’s no need to put yourself out. If you’re tired,” he slides his hands off Crowley, taking half a step back, “we can just-,”

“Ngk - no!” Crowley reaches behind, grabbing hold of an angelic wrist. “Come back, come back. M’not tired… Don’t be an ass.”

Aziraphale’s answering chuckle resonates through him as he leans in, pressing himself flush.

“Alright." There are kisses to the back of Crowley neck - to the crook of his shoulder, to the angle of his jaw. He feels the brush of half damp curls against his ear. Aziraphale's breath against his cheek. “If _you_ insist.”

He hears the black cap of the bottle snap open, feels his body twitch reflexively.

“Go on, then. Put me out of my misery…”

Another deep chuckle.

“You have always been-,” Aziraphale bites softly at him, just enough to sting, to make him reach out and place a steadying hand against the wall, “deplorably impatient.”

“Fuck off-,” he whispers, as the angel’s hand slides around to cup him gently, to squeeze over swollen, sensitive flesh.

“How fast?” His friend breathes, against him.

“Slow.” His eyelids fall closed again, the world turned sunshine pink. “Really slow.”

“Okay.”

They take it really, really slow.

Crowley is shivering into each movement by the end of it, cheek crushed against the shower wall, torn between thrusting forwards and leaving enough room for Aziraphale’s hand to work. The angel’s movements are - as promised - relentlessly, relentlessly, slow. Crowley’s forehead is marked, from how hard he’s had it pressed against the tiles. His breathing is ragged, echoing ten times louder than normal against the hard walls of the room. He’s drooled a bit - glad of the water that masks it - but it’s all too lovely to feel embarrassed about, really. It’s too comforting. The shower stays warm because they expect it to and, about five minutes after they start, the demon groans and shudders still, toes curled against the tiled floor as he comes into his best friend’s hand.

Aziraphale stays pressed against him for a long time afterwards, kissing into his shoulder, grinding gently against his lower back.

“You can get yours too, you know,” the demon mumbles, eventually, sated and pliant.

His friend gives a little sigh.

“I don’t have to. This is lovely.”

“I know. S’alright, though… if you want?”

He feels a nose tip nudge into his neck.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

A little pause.

“Okay. How would you like me?”

“Bloody hell, angel… Any way.” He lifts his head from the tiles to cast a look back, anticipating Aziraphale’s need for reassurance. “However you want. It’s good.”

They meet one another’s gaze. His friend bites at his lip. Then, he reaches down and adjusts Crowley by the waist, sending fire up the back of the demon’s spine.

“Here-,”

Crowley lets himself be guided back from the wall, a tiny, victorious hiss slipping out of his throat, because he _loves_ this. He loves letting Aziraphale direct him, letting the angel move him into position and take what he needs. There is something freeing about the act of providing, a lovely balance of power and submission to it. It’s all right up Crowley’s alley.

“Legs,” the angel murmurs, softly, curling his fingers around his hip, and Crowley feels the slightly odd sensation of his tendons sliding underneath that grasp as he crosses his legs.

“M‘kay…”

They don’t do this often - not this way around. Crowley would be the first to admit that Aziraphale’s thighs are better suited to the role. But the groan his friend gives, as he slides himself home, is proof that they feel good enough.

There is something oddly meditative about the few minutes it takes Aziraphale to get off - something ephemeral about the steam hanging in the air, and the light playing through it, and the repetitive glide of him. The gentle rhythm. The soft whispers against his neck.

Crowley lets his head fall back against the tiles and relaxes into it, braces them against the wall and lets the angel lead. The tilt of his hips means that the tip of Aziraphale’s cock drags over his entrance ever few strokes and gives a little spark of desire. Just a faint one. Just enough to get him halfway to hard again, by the end of it - by the time his friend moans and flattens against him, hand sliding up to clench around his wrist.

“Crowley-,”

“Yes, angel. That’s good… You feel so good.”

A little praise goes a long way, with Aziraphale. Crowley supposes it’s because he has not received a lot of it, in life (something he has endeavoured to change, given time). At the words, his friend trembles against him, pushing his face into the crook of his neck, mumbling a slur of words which might have included his name and ‘beautiful’.

Crowley preens, internally, and gives his friend a minute to catch his breath, before giving an experimental little wriggle and grinning back over his shoulder.

“Bet you’re glad I insisted now, eh?”

Aziraphale turns his head to one side so that he can meet his gaze, a smile slowly spreading across his face. Then, he’s giving a low chuckle and turning his face back in, burying pink cheeks into the back of Crowley’s shoulder.

.

It is blissful domesticity, the process of pulling apart and cleaning up, together - stepping out of the shower and drying themselves off on fluffy towels that definitely hadn’t been there before Aziraphale arrived. The world sort of shifts around the angel, making itself softer. It has always done so. And Crowley has always enjoyed following along, in his friend’s wake.

Pottering back through to the kitchen, they find that the kettle which had been set to boil, earlier, is still steaming away, gently. Their tea ends up just the right state of brewed, despite their getting distracted several times during making it. One of Crowley’s favourite movies happens to be playing, when he flicks on the television, so they throw themselves down on front of it. The car chases are never too loud and adverts don’t exist, because Aziraphale doesn’t expect them to.

“I’m still going to spend the next few days being a moody bitch,” Crowley offers, a few hours later, as they lie, relaxed and a bit tipsy, among their untold number of pillows. “S’not that I’m not grateful that you came over, or anything. It’s just a thing. You know?”

“I know.” Aziraphale is watching the credits roll. His face is angled in perfect profile, the tip of his nose catching the television’s shifting light. “I didn’t come here to tell you to snap out of it, dear. Just thought you could use some company. Moping can be more fun, with two.”

It can be, thinks the demon, burying his toes a little deeper under an angelic thigh.

“It’s a bit stupid, really, don’t know why I still get bothered by it.” His stomach does a little preemptive flip, the way it does every time he's about to let slip something emotionally revealing. “Humans die all the time. They’ve been dying since the world began.”

“It still hurts.”

“I didn’t even know this one, personally.”

Aziraphale lets out a low sigh, still watching the screen. A narrow band of light has crept in, through a crack in the curtains, and has fallen cross his face, painting his skin gold and throwing the shadows of his cheeks into sharp relief. He’s always been beautiful in high contrast, Crowley thinks.

“They were a presence in your world and now they’re gone,” Aziraphale muses, after a long pause. “The amount of pain we feel is not necessarily proportional to the role someone plays in our lives.”

“Yeah, but-,” Crowley squirms. “I only knew this human as a fictional character, in a TV program.” He pulls a face. “I mean, I am literally getting my wings in a twist over a fictional character. It’s just-,”

“They were a person, to you,” the angel tells him, gently. “And anyway, Crowley, we only ever know people as what they put out, into the world. What was it that Vonnegut said?”

“Who?”

“Kurt Vonnegut. Postmodern author.” Aziraphale gives a dismissive twitch of one hand. “He wrote something along the lines of; ’ _We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be’_.”

“Sounds like a right cheerful bugger.” 

Aziraphale ignores him.

“I’ve always thought it was a rather good summation of what it is to be human.”

“Yeah, but-,” Crowley winkles his nose, “there’s still a difference between who someone pretends to be and who they actually are.”

“Well, yes, dear. To that individual, I imagine there is a world of difference. But to everyone else - to the outside world…” Aziraphale sighs, adjusts himself primly, frowns at the illuminated screen. “You knew this human as the character that they chose to portray,” he says, eventually. “You knew this character’s story, and their beliefs, and their choices. That's all anyone can expect to know about someone else, from the outside. In my opinion, it more than justifies a feeling of loss.”

“It’s still a little pathetic, though, isn’t it?” Crowley grumbles.

“It’s not pathetic, Crowley, it's just what people do. We get invested.”

“Yeah, but six days in loungewear has got to be overkill.”

Aziraphale looks over, with a frown.

"I thought it had only been five days?”

“I’m counting tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I’m still getting a loungewear vibe.” He shrugs, apologetically.

“Right…” His friend gives a little sigh, then seems to gather himself, turning back towards the television screen. “Well, everybody deals with grief in their own way,” he tells the demon, sagely. “I shall support you, no matter how you chose to express yourself.”

Crowley is torn between the impulse to throw his wine over his friend’s pompous head and the desire to straddle the angel, and kiss him until neither one of them had any feeling left in their lips. In the interests of dignity, he settles on neither, curling his toes a little deeper into the sofa, instead.

A minute passes in comfortable silence.

Then, Aziraphale’s face brightens and he sits up a little straighter.

“Oooh, look!” Raising his hand, the angel points to a small line of letters moving up the screen. “There’s one.”

Crowley squints, leaning forwards.

“Where?”

“Halfway up.”

“I don’t see it.”

“You really are terrible at this game. On the left.”

“I don’t-,”

“Gaffer, second unit - Stephen Crowley.”

“Eyyy!” Crowley finally spots the name and grins, leaning back against the sofa. “Another one of my noble kinsmen…” They watch the name slide up the screen and disappear from sight. “I bet they, too, are devastatingly handsome.”

He feels his friend eye him, in the peripheral.

“I’m not going to rise to that comment, dear. You’re in a state of mourning. It would be terribly unfair.”

“Piss off,” Crowley growls, but his lips are already curling into a smile. This is nice, he thinks. This is exactly what he wants - Aziraphale in his home, always. “You staying, tonight?” He asks, trying to keep his tone neutral.

The angel nods.

“I thought I might. If you don't mind?”

“I don’t mind. There’s plenty of space. You can kip on the sofa bed.” He gives the statement a few seconds, before looking over and gesticulating between the pair of them. “You see that’s funny, now, because we-,”

“Yes, I understood the implication,” Aziraphale rolls his eyes. “Subtle as it was…”

“Heh.” Wriggling back into his nest of pillows, Crowley gives a wide yawn. He feels pleasantly drunk and comfortable. “So, what do you want to watch next?”

“Your choice,” Aziraphale yawns back, topping up his wine. “This is your pity party.”

“I suppose it is.” Crowley stares at him a few moments longer, then reaches behind himself, groping down the side of the sofa in search of the long-lost remote. “You know, I think I’m feeling some action. Or maybe something supernatural. I still haven’t watched the Conjuring 2. We could-,”

“Oh, no…” Aziraphale lets out a low groan, face crumpling over his wine glass. “No, Crowley… Must we?”

“I have to press my advantage,” the demon insists, finding the remote and aiming at the television - scrolling through an endless maze of menus. “It is the demonic thing to do. You’re feeling all sorry for me, right now. This might be the only time I get you to sit through the thing.”

“I’m not worried about sitting through the thing,” the angel grumbles, across the sofa. “I’m worried about the days of nightmares you are going to have, afterwards.”

“Me? Nightmares? Pah! You’ll be the one with nightmares, angel. I’ll be sleeping like a baby. Just you wait.”

“It took you seven hours to get to sleep after ‘The Nun’, last month.”

“Thats’not… ss’not…” Crowley pulls a face. “That was nothing to do with nightmares. I just wasn’t tired.”

“Bollocks,” Aziraphale states, flatly.

“No - really! I’d had caffeine at dinner, that evening.”

“You had tiramisu.”

“I-,”

“The caffeine content was negligible.”

“I could feel my heart pounding as soon as I ate the thing!”

“That was probably the existential panic, dear.”

“Hey.” He points a long finger vaguely in Aziraphale’s direction. “I’ll have you know, my heart rate has _never_ gone above eighty five, during of the films we have watched together. I am,” he clenches his hand into a fist, “a rock.”

“Oh, for goodness sake…”

“Listen, it’s either that or my pity music, so take your-,”

“You know, at this point, I think I’ll take the pity music.”

“OH? Oh really?”

“Yes. And don’t act as if that wasn’t your intention all along.”

Crowley lowers the remote, narrowing his eyes at his friend.

“Music and dancing then?”

“Angels don’t dance.”

Crowley gives a bark of a laugh.

“ _That_ is a barefaced lie, but I’ll let you have it, tonight, because I’m feeling generous.” He leans closer, flashing a bit of fang. “Alright... What about music and… snogging?”

Aziraphale quirks an eyebrow, gaze dragging slowly over him - a performer, to the last.

“Well, I’ll go to second base,” he answers, eventually, “but that’s my final offer.”

And a grin splits Crowley’s face, at that, because he knows it's all for him. He knows that Aziraphale had googled ‘second base’ two weeks ago, after a joke that he had clearly not understood, at the time. He knows that the angel is here, tonight, for him - making a joke at his own expense _for him_. He knows that Aziraphale’s only intention is to make him feel better and it's so incredibly foreign and fantastic, that he has to smother the warm feeling that creeps up in his throat before his grin threatens to morph into something far soppier.

So, throwing one arm dramatically up in the air, he points the remote back at the television - punching in a random button to shut it off.

“Sold!” He announces, to the room at large. "Music and snogging it is."

Aziraphale continues to watch him, his expression a mix of prim and deeply fond.

“We can listen to anything but Cher,” he grants, magnanimously.

“Deal.”

“And no more than two repeats of Meredith Brooks.”

Crowley’s grin slips wider. He looks away, to hide it.

“Fine.”

“And I’m only allowing two because you are, in fact, a goddess on your knees.”

Crowley closes his eyes, lips drawing back until he’s showing too much tooth - until he’s showing entirely too much demon. He’s ridiculous, he thinks. He’s a joke. But he’s stupid happy and exactly where he wants to be. On a slightly cramped sofa, his foot half asleep, his best friend cracking terrible jokes beside him, just to make him smile.

“See,” he swallows, waving an accusatory finger in Aziraphale’s direction. “I knew you knew the lyrics!”

“I don’t know what you mean, dear boy,” the angel’s tone is a near perfect replica of that trademark ‘shocked innocence’ - belayed only by the width of his pupils and the slight flush in his cheeks.

Something twinges in Crowley’s gut.

Fuck. I'm going to marry you, he thinks, staring over at his friend. I'm going to do it just like humans do. Buy a ring. Take you somewhere nice. Get down on one knee and make a whole deal of it - because I know you like a show. I’m going to spend the rest of my existence finding new ways to bind myself to you, out in the open, where everyone else can see. If perception is identity, then that is what I want the world to know of me. This, us, together.

His stomach performs a spectacular backflip, anticipation and fear rising up inside of him. Looking away, he frowns at the blank television screen.

“Crowley? Are you okay?”

"Yeah, yeah…” he comes back to himself with a slight ringing in his ears. A surfeit of emotion kicking at the inside of his sternum. “I'm good."

He swallows.

At the other end of the sofa, Aziraphale continues to watch him, head tilted slightly to one side.

There is a silence for about thirty seconds. Then, he says Crowley’s name. So softly.

“Anthony J Crowley.”

His lips play over it, sounding out syllables pieced together through millennia.

They don’t mean anything, alone, Crowley thinks, distractedly. ‘Crowley’ had been a reflex - a kick back against the name that Hell had saddled him with. ‘Anthony’, he had picked out in Rome, because he’d liked the sound. The ‘J’ was just something to bind it together - another human veneer to hide behind, like his sunglasses, or the Bentley. Put together, however, in Aziraphale’s voice, the name means much more. It is all the things Crowley has ever been and tried to be.

“What?” He blusters, pulling a face. He cannot quite meet Aziraphale's eyes, so he settles on staring at the network of fine lines around them.

The angel readjusts against his cushions.

There is a victorious softness in his expression - like he knows he’s won a round, despite not knowing exactly what game they are playing.

Crowley slouches a bit further against the sofa, forcing a bit of aggression into the line of his shoulders. It’s the same aggression he’s used to defend himself time and time again. Through all his ‘shut up’s and ‘it’s fine, angel’s - all the times he’s wanted to crawl across the space between them and beg for touch. They’ve been dancing around this game for a long time, he thinks, eyeing Aziraphale. The angel has always known how better to play his hand.

“What?” He asks again, weakly.

“I was just wondering how on Earth you expect me to kiss you, when you’re all the way over there?”

There is something deeply wrong with him, Crowley thinks - with the intensity of feeling that rises up within him at that sentence. His body gives a needy shiver, his insides warm with the rush of being chosen. Of being wanted. You're getting a half-baked excuse of a demon, he thinks, as he crawls over, eyes focussed on the dimple in Aziraphale's chin. But you already know that. You always have.

He stops at his friend's side, on his knees, still half-slouched against the back of the sofa.

"Better," Aziraphale breathes.

“I love that you are so proficient at dealing with me,” Crowley hisses - letting the words escape him before shame can reel them back in.

The corner of the angel’s mouth twitches.

“It is a pleasure, my dear. As always.”

"Even when I'm being dramatic?"

"I wouldn't want it any other way."

“Mm.” His eyes slide down, to the dip of his friend’s mouth. His lovely, soft mouth. “You going to ruin me to the backdrop of nineties bebop, then?”

Aziraphale gives a little chuckle.

“Yes. Come here.”

Winding a hand around the back of the angel's borrowed jumper, Crowley guides them both down into the crease of the sofa.

They do not end up watching the Conjuring 2. Which is probably for the best.

.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me lurking on [IG](https://www.instagram.com/heycaricari/), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/heycaricari), and [Tumblr](https://heycaricari.tumblr.com/) @heycaricari


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